G12: Rangers beat Mariners, 3-1 on Sat

Posted by Joe Siegler on April 13, 2013 at 11:44 pm http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_04_13_texmlb_seamlb_1&mode=wrap>MLB.com Recap

I had to work and do a bunch of family stuff, and as such I went to bed early on Saturday night. I didn’t get to see any of this one, so this is a pure box score recap from me. :)

The pitchers duel I thought we’d get the night before with Darvish & Iwakuma materialized a bit more solidly on Saturday night with Alexi Ogando taking the hill against Joe Saunders. Saunders is a weird case for us, I always feel like we should crush him, but he’ll turn around and do what he did last night against us; especially when he was with the Angels. Sat night was not a “crush him” night, I see.

Ogando started for Texas, and did a decent enough job of keeping the Mariners off the board. Five innings pitched, gave up five hits and a walk for just a single run allowed. Not bad. He did, however throw 98 pitches in those five innings – way too many. Remember, the generally accepted target is 15 per inning, which should have given him 75 pitches after 5. 98 is where he should have been into the 7th. He definitely pitched himself out of the game there. Not having seen or heard any of this one, I can’t say how he was pitching, but I’m guessing “Well, he’s around 100, laboring, let’s bring him out”.

He was followed by Robbie Ross, and then a guy who I’m now dubbing “Smokin’ Joe Ortiz”. Ortiz went two innings, threw 22 pitches, allowed a single hit, but that was *IT*. I’m REALLY liking the fact that Smokin’ Joe has come on the way he has. He was followed by Joe Nathan who got his 4th save of the season so far. Our bullpen has looked pretty good so far this season, and that’s going to be important if we’re going to go anywhere this season.

Offensively, we had even less going on than we did on Friday night. We had only five hits, and all five of them were singles (each by five different players). Had three walks. But it was enough to get the win.

I’m honestly most excited about Joe Ortiz. I’ll take the win no matter who gives it to us, but man. Ortiz!

Oh, I probably should also bring up the fact that Leury Garcia made his first major league start in this game. He went 1-2 with a walk, and scored a run. Had a good game offensively for first start. I didn’t get to see it, but one’s always happy when a rookie makes his first start, and has a good game. :)

About Site

This is a Texas Rangers fan site run by Joe Siegler. From 1999 through 2013 I used to do daily game updates, but got burnt out on that and stopped.

The site lives on as my favorite section to update I'm still very interested in. That is the Uniform Number history pages, which I'm quite proud of. Plus Ill write the odd article here and there.

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line.
-- Joe

Categories

Categories

Disclaimer

Rangerfans.com is a fan site run by Joe Siegler, and is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Texas Rangers, who have their own website. Similarly, this website has no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to Texas Rangers Baseball LLC, or MLBAM. This is a fan based website.